Tom Robinson's Trial by Marcia
by upsidedownchick
Summary: In a bigoted world, Many inocent men are convicted of crime. Tom Robinson's conviction affects his entire African American community.


1. Before the Trial

I knew Tom shouldn't be on trial. I knew it was all bigotry. I felt like I knew Tom. After all, he's of color like me. We'd all be the suspects if there were an earthquake just cause o' the color of our skin. Right there in the middle of the yard pickin' berries from the bushes for supper, I hollered, "It ain't fair! They can't just blame Tom for the rape of Mayella Ewell. What he do to deserve-?"

"Why don't you realize, Marcia, that Tom ain't got no hope?" sneered my older sister, Sandra, cutting me off in mid-sentence. A look of effort to seem mature crossed her entire body as she carried the laundry basket on her hip. "Let it be, you don't even know that Tom, what do you care about him? He's gonna be dead after the trial tommorow anyway."

Sandra thinks she knows everythin'. If it was Ma's death or a white man's horse's slaughter, she'd have no say and act like it's just another dark day anyways.

But a black man ain't got the nerve to tamper with a white man's pride. They knew if they did nothin' they'd still be hanged one day, but they may as well be hanged knowin' they'd go to heaven just like my pa.

I remembered the funeral three years past, Sandra holdin' back tears for the last time, "Heaven's just another place like here, ain't no use tryin'a get there when your time comes. Just more poverty, more trials, more death."

Sandra was right, Pa didn't win the trial, neither will Tom. The only change ever seen in Maycomb's black society was the constant stereotypin', the death of blacks, then back to just stereotypin'. Now is one of them low deaths, but it feels like somethin' that never happened before.

2. During the Trial

"Tom Robinson did it, he took advantage of me!" Ain'tcha got anythin' else to say. That white brat, Mayella's, gotta explain herself. We all know her darlin' pa was the one. Even the rest of us colored folks could spare some detail of a man rapin' us.

Who'm I kiddin'? She ain't gonna do nothin' to take sides with no man o' color. No'n else in this bundle of cat scratch of our Maycomb County's gonna help Tom neither 'cept that Atticus, but he's weight on the see-saw, he ain't gonna get far. And us, we ain't got no rights to use.

When I tell my friend, Sandra, she'd snap somethin' like, "We just the junk yard in the town, Marcia. Go and find some land where the fairies are flyin' and the dragons breathin' fire. Bet you'll find one rights there."

Heck, they might be right, but I just can't give up. My lack o' rights could last just a couple more years; might be just one shot of an entire war. Nobody knows, not even the white people, but I sure do hope Tom Robinson changes it for us all.

3. After the Trial

I was wrong. Nothin' could stop those colored-hatin' folks of Maycomb. I could not believe Tom Robinson's imprisonment. Them good-for-nothin' bigots. Who made it that a white man's word in Court's better than a black's?

It was at in the kitchen cookin' supper that night when we started up the corn bread that I asked Sandra 'bout what was on my mind. "Why's it that white people got more rights than us colored folks? I swear if I white man killed a girl, her own sister would be blamed whether she falsely admitted it or denied it. We either stupid or liars, Sandra."

I was surprised Sandra listened and did not interrupt. "Yah, you got it all right, Sis," Sandra reluctantly said, it bein' the first time since Pa's death that she's called me Sis. "but we wouldn't run."

"What-cha mean by that Sandra," I asked nervously.

"Oh, well let me sit with you on the rockin' chair for this one," another first, which I was too preoccupied to pat any mind to. As we sat on the rockin' chair and she stroked my hair, she took my hand and whispered, "Tom, he's dead."

For the first time since Tom's arrest, I bawled, not because he somethin' happened to Tom, but because the neither Maycomb nor the world is changing. The only reason I was ever concerned about Tom was for that reason. Sandra and I weeped and weeped 'til we heard a rap at the door. Sandra answered, and when Ma came home from her job as a maid for the first time in a month, I headed for the door and embraced her. When Sandra's and my tear-struck eyes met Ma's, we knew we were all feelin' the same way.

After we visited Tom's family, we cried some more and I asked, "Ma, can't we do somethin' about it?

The pronoun, "it," spoke for itself, and it would continue doing it forever. It was a melancholy yet crucial memory. Great fortune will occur, but the unyielding bigotry cannot be escaped from and will forever surpass the great.


End file.
